American's big deal flies in the face of reality By: George Raine

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 21, 1997

American Airlines has had a system-clogging response this week to discounted fares posted after its aborted pilot strike.

But skeptical travel agents are saying: Buyer beware of the small print.

The discounts are up to 50 percent on flights in the continental United States, to Hawaii, Canada and Europe with no advance purchase required. They were effective shortly after President Clinton early Saturday blocked a strike that lasted only 24 minutes but, in the run up to it, cost American $100 million in lost bookings.

It remains to be seen how long its journey back to public favor, recovery of losses and pre-strike market share will take. Tim Smith, an American spokesman at its headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, said Thursday that ticket inquiries were eight or nine times above normal Monday and Tuesday and were still five times greater Thursday.

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Other carriers moved quickly to match American. Consumers now find themselves in the cross-fire of a fare war - but one in which the savings are relative.

Discounts this time of year are common, said Bob Ensten of American Made Travel Adventures in Novato, and, he added, may be less than they appear since prices have climbed somewhat in recent weeks.

Moreover, said Ensten, some "discounts" cost more than others.

This week, Ensten booked reservations for a group of 17 people from Los Angeles to Atlanta. One of the discounted American fares (QE21NR in the fine print) is normally $821 round trip that with a 40 percent discount is $492.60. But American offers another fare (ME21NR) that is $298, not subject to discount.

Ensten found that United Airlines has a fare of $198 and USAir has a $168 fare.

"Make the suckers think that they are getting a bargain and they will be forever indebted to you," said Ensten in an e-mail to fellow travel agents.

"It's not that they are not telling you the truth," he said in an interview, "but they are telling the truth in such a way that the layman cannot possibly understand."

"It's such an interesting mess," Dale Colson, owner of Travel Star in Westport, Conn., said of the American labor dispute and ensuing fare ware. "All I know is I am really annoyed it is jerking me around and making my job 25 times harder."

Sale is getting people back

Restrictions apply, to be sure, in American's offerings. But, said Smith, part of the sale strategy is "to get people back into the marketplace in a hurry, and that appears to be happening."

American's booking-information system is called SABRE, which is entered every time a travel agent or American employee types a message and hits the enter key. During this week's peak period Tuesday morning, SABRE received 5,214 messages per second, passing a previous high of 4,969 per second one day last July, said Smith.

"All those consumers must be happy with something," he said. "If there is something lower in a specific market, odds are we have matched it by now anyway. That's what you do in this business."

Typically, American may receive 300,000 to 340,000 inquiries each day, but this week it has reached 2 million or more calls.

"It is an indication of response not only to fare levels but the added element of no advance purchase and double frequent-flier miles," said Smith.

Renewed strike threat

American's advance bookings are not up because of a renewed threat of a strike by the 9,300 members of the Allied Pilots Association, representing American pilots, against the AMR Corp., parent of American, failing contract negotiations and the work of an emergency board created by the White House to try to reach accord.

Should the dispute be resolved, Parsons added, and American has no advance bookings from April through July,

"we could see one of the best blowout sales for spring and summer that we have seen in a long time."

As is, said Parsons, American's domestic discounts "are nothing to write home to mom about, but to the Caribbean and Europe it's one of the best fares we've seen in years."

The discounts, said Smith, are telling consumers "we understand the uncertainty and your discomfort and we thank you for staying with us and going through this with us."

The discounts are for regular 21-day excursion fares, and apply to tickets purchased until March 3, while the double-frequent-flier offer applies to all flights on American and American Eagle through March 14.

However, travel agents are finding a diminishing supply of seats. "People do not understand that because it is there in the ad, they can't have it, or it doesn't necessarily mean what you think it says," said Connecticut travel agent Colson.

"Where they (American) tended to lower the fares is on (routes) being capacity controlled, and those could be gone very quickly," she said.

"They were there when we began this," said Smith, adding that plenty of discounted tickets are available, except on flights to warm destinations.

"We're definitely climbing out of a hole, and until I have 20-20 hindsight I really don't know when we regain market share. But I think we have the potential to maintain our market share with this sale." &lt;

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